Hit-&-Run driver Julio Acevedo, once convicted of murder, had lucky breaks with the law

Admitted hit-and-run death driver Julio Acevedo might still be behind bars for the killing of one of the city’s most notorious street thugs were it not for a chance run-in with a fellow inmate, the Daily News has learned.

Acevedo, who was indicted Wednesday for wiping out a young Hasidic family in Brooklyn, was sentenced to 20 years to life behind bars for the 1987 murder of Kelvin (50 Cent) Martin, whose moniker inspired the rapper by the same name.

Acevedo’s defense team had unsuccessfully argued that he was forced into carrying out the hit after being kidnapped by drug dealers.

But seven years after the murder, Acevedo, 44, bumped into an inmate at Attica prison named Derrick Hamilton, who had read about the slaying while researching another case.

Hamilton said that he came across the 1992 trial testimony of Richard Bush, a drug dealer turned informant, who recounted how he and his crew snatched Acevedo and his cousin.

“So we told (Acevedo), ‘You go up there and bring Fifty downstairs into the hallway,’ ” Bush testified, adding the two cousins were Martin’s bodyguards. “You are going to kill Fifty, or we’re going to kill your cousin.”

Citing the newly discovered evidence, which supported his claim of duress, Acevedo filed a motion asking the judge to vacate his murder conviction.

“Your defendant was 18 years old at the time of this crime, uneducated and used as a pawn (by) well-organized murderers to complete a task in which the defendant neither benefit(ed) nor profited from,” it said.

Despite prosecutors’ contentions that Acevedo brought an alibi defense, Brooklyn Justice Anne Feldman accepted the argument, ordering a new trial in 1997.

The killer then copped to manslaughter and was released after credit for the decade he’d already served.

It was the first of two lucky legal breaks for Acevedo, who is accused of fleeing from a crash in which he T-boned a livery cab carrying a pregnant Raizy Glauber and her husband, Nachman, both 21. The couple were killed, and their baby died after it was delivered by C-section.

Less than two weeks before the March 3 crash, Acevedo was busted with a DWI, but Brooklyn Justice Michael Gary released him without bail and let him keep his driver’s license, even though suspension is mandatory in such cases.

By Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS